English - Convention on Biological Diversity

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102 COUNTRY STUDY FOR BIODIVERSITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA European countries. Nevertheless, this is one of the most severe threats to biodiversity in Macedonia. A more detailed presentation of the impacts from the transportation sector is contained in Section 3.6.1.3. 5.9. Tourism and recreation 5.9.1. Current status and economic importance of the sector The Department of Tourism within the Ministry of Economy plays the main role in creating the touristic policy of the Republic of Macedonia. It is responsible for all the legal means by which tourism is regulated, and the Law on Tourism, Catering and Hospitality provides the highest standard of management. Apart from the Ministry, numerous social and economic organisations function within the system, such as: the Tourist Union of the Republic of Macedonia, tourist unions of individual cities, numerous travel agencies (around 160), numerous touristic and catering facilities, the Faculty of Tourism and Catering in Ohrid, the Department of Tourism in the Institute of Geography (Faculty of Natural Science and Mathematics) in Skopye etc. Of the four main types of touristic destinations (City of Skopye, tourist health/spa resorts, tourist vacation resorts [mountains and lakes] and other, typically non-touristic areas), the City of Skopye exhibited the highest tourist turnover, followed by vacation and health/spa resorts. At present, touristic and catering activities employ around 10,000 people (2,895 of whom are female), or only 3.2% of the total number of employed persons in Macedonia. Total revenues generated by tourism and catering activities during 2001 amounted to €8.5 million or 2.0% of the total gross national product (GNP). 5.9.2. Changes in the sector over time In reference to the tourist, catering and hospitality trades, the number of establishments reached its highest level, 3,497, in 1990. Currently, the number of these businesses is approximately half, or 1,798. The number of seats in catering and other related service facilities in 1990 was 187,928; today, this number is as low as 73,759. The total number of beds, which amounted to 82,411 in 1990, is similar, dropping to 78,913 in 1995 and to 73,759 at present. With regard to tourist turnover, the total number of tourists in the Republic of Macedonia in 1990 was 974,537, spending a total of 3,099,508 nights. Since this period, primarily due to social and political events in this region of the Balkans, tourist turnover appears to have experienced a permanent decrease, reaching its lowest value in 1997, when the country was visited by only 476,025 tourists who spent a total of 1,587,146 nights (the absolute minimum since 1978). During the three years since 2000, the number of visitors and nights spent have noted gradual average increases, or 632,523 and 2,434,639, respectively. It is noteworthy, however, that tourism has one of the best prospects for economic growth considering the extraordinary favourable conditions for its development in terms of natural, geographic and anthropogenic factors. 5.9.3. Impact on biodiversity Considering the scope of the term ‘biodiversity,’ it is absolutely undisputable that tourism and biodiversity are in an indivisible symbiosis, that is, in an uninterruptible interaction with each other. The development of tourism in some regions, for example, results in adverse impacts related to degradation of the quality of the land, which further
COUNTRY STUDY FOR BIODIVERSITY OF THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA impacts the biodiversity within these areas. A specific example concerns the construction of more than 600 weekend houses in the vicinity of Skopye (residential tourism, which is also widespread in other areas), irreversibly taking the modest agricultural areas out of production (Section 3.6.1.). The primary protection measure in such situations would be a plan to control the urbanisation of touristic weekend settlements. Another notable case is the illegal construction of various touristic structures on the shores of Macedonian natural lakes. Adverse impacts are evident not only in the degradation of surrounding upland ecosystems, but also in the direct pollution of the lakes themselves. There are many specific examples of this (Lagadin on Ohrid Lake, 1,200 weekend houses around Mavrovo Lake within Mavrovo National Park etc). 5.10. Other key sectors affecting biodiversity We may say that there are no other known key sectors in the Republic of Macedonia that have major direct impacts on biodiversity. Nevertheless, the army, that is, the defence sector, education, research and trade are significant factors/sectors influencing biodiversity. 5.10.1. Defence During the period of the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, the army’s installations and numerical status decreased drastically. Following 2000, the situation changed due to the internal conflict, at least with regard to activities and installations. Currently, there is no planned involvement of the army in the protection of the environment, especially of biodiversity. The activities of the army are perceived to be of high national interest and the possible consequences to biodiversity from any type of military activity are not questioned. There are examples of negative impacts to biodiversity from the activities of the defence sector: building of roads in various areas without any consultation with the MoEPP (the same is true for international forces - United Nations Protection Force [UNPROFOR], North Atlantic Treaty Organisation [NATO] and Kosovo Force [KFOR] – stationed in the Republic of Macedonia); development and extensions of military proving grounds; pollution etc. The largest military proving ground in the Republic of Macedonia, Krivolak, is situated in an area (Slan Dol) with abundant endemic and rare plants and invertebrates. In the coming period, the Ministry of Defence should prepare a sectoral action plan on biodiversity protection, as well as reports on the progress in this field. 5.10.2. Education and research Within the education system of Macedonia, some efforts have been made to introduce educational topics in the area of environment under the compulsory curriculum. Such courses, however, are still optional and at the primary school level only. As far as biodiversity is concerned, there has been no evidence of its emphasis in teaching. Section 6. contains more detail on this issue. In the Ministry of Education and Science, research related to biodiversity is rather neglected in their financial allocations for scientific projects. 103
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Country Study for Biodiversity of t
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This study was based upon scientifi
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• Branislava Mihajlova, M.Sc., Mu
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FOREWORD...........................
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